


I'd pay a grand for some paradise

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: A.C. Milan, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blood and Violence, Crimes & Criminals, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, Forbidden Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Organized Crime, Possible Character Death, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:01:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29909766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: Brahim is a rich kid who abuses drugs because he hates his life. One night, due to circumstances, Samu, his dealer, sends someone else in his place. And that's how Jens walks into Brahim's life, turns it upside down and pulls him into a game more dangerous than they could imagine.
Relationships: Jens Petter Hauge/Brahim Díaz
Comments: 13
Kudos: 7





	1. I throw stones at the sun, because I hate it

**Author's Note:**

> This fic marks my return to Football RPF, probably.
> 
> It's a monster. You've been warned.
> 
> The title comes from the song Lucky For You by Espen Lind, and it's literally the line that gave me the idea for the fic.
> 
> Many thanks to everyone who encouraged me when I was writing this.

The thick wood of Brahim’s father’s study door muffles the cacophony of voices and music. He plops down on the leather sofa that feels stiff and hard, completely unused. Like everything in the house. In every house Brahim remembers. The furniture never has enough time to mold itself to the shape of their bodies.

Then he pulls out his phone and finds Samu’s number.

He hasn’t called him for weeks. Didn’t really feel the need. And it didn’t occur to him that the need would come at a party he organized himself, using his family’s house for it, without his parents knowing, of course. He should be having the fun of his life, but the fact that he _isn’t_ is the final push.

“Yeah?” Samu’s voice sounds from the speaker.

“Hey,” Brahim says. “I need a little something. Wondered if you could get me some.”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end. “Yeah, well…” Samu says. “Thing is… I don’t have that stuff anymore.”

Brahim frowns at his own distorted reflection in the decorative golden bowl on the table. “How come?”

Samu clears his throat. “I work for someone else now, and he doesn’t do that stuff. So… unless you want to experiment with something new…”

“No, thanks. Not tonight, at least.”

“Thought so,” Samu chuckles. “Well, then…”

“Then what?” Brahim snaps, hearing the annoyance in his voice rise up. “Listen, I really… really need something.”

There’s the unspoken “you can’t ditch me like this”. Which technically, of course, Samu can, but still.

Samu hesitates again, and then he sighs. “I guess I could do something for you,” he says. “As for a loyal customer.”

“Yeah?”

“I could call one of Simon’s guys, see if he could get you something,” Samu says. “Hang on a minute.”

Brahim hums in agreement and hangs up, leaning back and just staring at the ceiling. He’s been buying from Samu for nearly half a year now. He already knows him, and trusts him, which is invaluable. Knowing he could call at any moment and get his fix, and know exactly what he gets. He’s not looking forward to building up that trust with someone new. He’s not even sure if it’s possible.

The phone rings again mere two minutes later. 

“Okay, go to the corner of your street in like twenty minutes,” Samu says. “You’re lucky Jens is so easy to be talked into pretty much anything. But throw in a little extra so that I don’t feel like a complete jerk, okay?”

Brahim rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “Thanks.”

He’s quite sure that most of all, Samu is happy to be finally rid of him.

~ ~ ~

Fifteen minutes later, he pushes through the crowd of people dancing to the loud music, smoking pot around the kitchen island and making out on the 1930s chaise longue in the salon, throws on a jacket and walks out of the house.

He walks past the high fences and wide driveways slowly. The houses are mostly quiet and dark now. They are either empty, with their inhabitants gone on holiday somewhere warmer, like Brahim’s parents, or asleep, which is only understandable at this hour.

Then he gets to the corner, and stops dead in his tracks.

Samu at least kind of looked the part, with the tattoos and weird hair and simply… the way he talked and acted. He was always all business, he’d snatch the money and exchange it for the plastic bag so quickly that no one unaware of what was going on would notice the transaction being made.

But Jens somehow… looks like he shouldn’t even know what drugs are. He looks like a kid, way too clean, and nice, and ingenuous.

And on top of everything, he gives Brahim a fucking _smile_.

“You must be Brahim,” he says, like this is a damn _date_. “Samu told me about you.”

Brahim almost sighs. Samu probably painted him as an annoying rich kid that always calls at the most inconvenient times. Which, Brahim has to admit, is quite an accurate description.

He pulls out the money - with the little extra as Samu had suggested - and exchanges it for the plastic bag with white powder.

Jens doesn’t even look around before doing it. Sure, they’re in a neighborhood where no one would expect this transaction to take place, not in their wildest dreams. It’s not like a police car is going to appear all of a sudden. But still… he should have done it. At least pro forma.

“Samu said he worked for someone else now, and that this person wasn’t into this stuff,” Brahim says. Only then he realizes that he’s started to walk back to his house, and that for some reason, or maybe no reason in particular, Jens is following him, like they are on an evening walk.

“Zlatan,” Jens nods, and there’s a hint of distaste in his voice, or maybe Brahim just imagines it. “He’s into some… stronger stuff, I believe. Stronger than mephedrone, and that kind of fun.”

“Yeah… well, I don’t really need that. I’m just trying to… I guess… have fun at my own party.”

They are standing in front of Brahim’s house now. Jens looks up to the lit windows. The music can be faintly heard even though they are closed. 

“I wouldn’t say no to a party at a house like this,” he says.

Brahim shrugs. “Then come along.”

Jens laughs. “Yeah.”

“No, I mean it,” Brahim says. 

Jens gives him an incredulous look. “You met me two minutes ago.”

“Yeah,” Brahim says calmly. “I don’t know you any less than most of the people in there. And actually… there’s plenty of people who could use some of this stuff.”

“You mean you’re giving me a platform for this business?” Jens asks. “Will you want a cut or what?”

Now it’s Brahim’s turn to laugh. “I don’t think I need that,” he says. “Just… I guess if I already brought home people I don’t even know, and who are most likely going to steal something or break something in there, then it doesn’t really matter.”

He sticks his hands in the pockets of his jacket, gripping the plastic bag almost like he wants to make sure it’s still there.

“So?” he asks then. 

Jens just shrugs and follows him. 

The moment they walk in, the thick air hits Brahim in the face, a concoction of cigarettes and marihuana smoke, different perfumes, the tacky sweetness of spilled alcohol, and sweat. After breathing the fresh night air, it’s so strong that for a moment, he thinks that he’s going to throw up.

Jens looks around like he doesn’t even see any of the people at first. He looks at the wooden staircase in the hall, the thick Persian rugs and the giant paintings hanging on the walls, and actually takes a tiny step back, like he’s not sure if he’s even allowed to walk inside a house like this.

“It’s hideous,” Brahim says. “Sometimes I wish I could throw darts at the ugly people in the paintings.”

Jens giggles like a little child and follows Brahim to the salon. The voices and music get louder. Still not loud enough to drown out the sound of something crashing and breaking in the house. Brahim knows that it should worry him, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

“Do your thing,” he tells Jens and motions towards the door of his father’s study. “I’ll be over there… doing mine.”

~ ~ ~

Sitting back on the leather sofa, Brahim pulls out the plastic bag and pours some of the white powder on the silver tray that’s sitting on the small bar table next to it.

Out of all the wide array of things that were available on the market, he chose mephedrone, which people said was the safer alternative to cocaine and other stuff of that kind. Which, in retrospect, Brahim thinks sums him up pretty well. He wants the fun, but he’s also a damn coward.

There’s a quiet knock on the door. Then Jens walks in and looks around in amazement.

“What the hell is this?” he asks.

“My father’s study,” Brahim says.

“Your dad is the president or what?”

“No,” Brahim says. “He works at the consulate. Houses like this come with the job. Then you just move out and into another one like this, only in a different country. And it’s like you’ve never been here.”

“Unless you destroy half of it,” Jens notes. “Which is probably what you’re trying to do tonight.”

Brahim makes a face and throws his head back. He knows it’s too early for the drug to kick in, but he literally can’t wait. 

“I should be having the fun of my life,” he says. “So why am I not?”

Jens looks at him and smiles. “Are you asking me?”

“Yeah. Because I’ve asked myself, and I just don’t know… or well, you see my conclusion. I figured out that it was because I didn’t have this-“ he points to the few remaining grains of white powder on the tray. “But it’s not helping as much as I thought it would.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re not fifteen anymore,” Jens shrugs. “And you’re expecting the same amount of fun from something that was fun then. But… your dad yelling about a broken ashtray and cigarette burns on the carpet now probably won’t be as scary as it was when you were fifteen, right? So… what’s the point of pretending this is something very risky when you’re not likely to get grounded for it?”

Brahim lifts his head and looks at him. “Have you ever considered becoming a psychologist?” he asks.

“No. But you’ve invited people you don’t even know to a party in a house like this, and now you’re sitting by yourself in your dad’s study. You’re not even trying to have fun yourself, you’re trying to get back at your parents who aren’t even here to see it, so it doesn’t make sense.”

“I guess.”

“Where are they, anyway?”

Brahim shrugs. “Thailand. Or Sri Lanka. I don’t even know. I don’t really care.”

“Yeah, I don’t even know exactly where that is,” Jens smiles sheepishly, trying to make himself comfortable in the leather armchair, and Brahim wants to tell him that it’s an impossible quest, but finally, he says nothing.

He’s not sure if it’s the drugs taking effect already, or just the internal feeling he would have had anyway, but he’s only now noticing that Jens is actually pretty as a picture, even with the hair that kind of looks like he’s cut it himself with blunt scissors. He also gets Samu’s comment about him being easy to be talked into pretty much anything a lot more now. Jens must be the most trusting person Brahim has ever met, and it’s strangely refreshing. His world is suffering from a shortage of pure, honest people.

“Did Samu call you because you were the only one that wouldn’t send him to hell?” he asks.

Jens laughs shortly. “Yeah, probably,” he says. “I mean… no one wants to have anything to do with Samu now.” 

“Because he works for this… Zlatan?”

Jens nods. “Because Simon is mad about it, yes. And no one wants to get in trouble for talking to him.”

Brahim smirks. “But you talk to him.”

“I answered his call. To be honest, before I really thought about it. I guess I just like getting in trouble.”

Now Samu’s words about the extra money and feeling like a jerk make much more sense.

“Simon doesn’t have to know, does he?”

Jens just shrugs. “He always knows. Somehow.”

Brahim looks at him, but he can’t quite tell if Jens is afraid of this Simon or not. He hasn’t heard much about him from Samu, actually he’s quite sure that Jens has mentioned him more in the past hour or so than Samu did throughout the six months.

“Anyway, if you need something, you should call me from now on, so that I don’t have to talk to Samu anymore,” Jens smiles, and it’s almost flirtatious, or at least that’s how Brahim’s slightly altered brain perceives it. “Can I use one of those fancy pens and papers?”

Brahim follows his gaze to the mahogany desk in the corner of the room. He’s never even noticed the pens and expensive sheets of paper. “You could as well just put the number in my phone, but suit yourself.”

He spends the next minute or two watching Jens trying to find out how the pen even works, and the delighted smile on his face when he figures out that the cap needs to be unscrewed. It’s probably the best part of the whole night. He’s definitely stoned by now. 

Jens finishes scribbling something and puts the pen back almost religiously. “I have to go,” he says. “It’s late.”

“You can sleep here,” Brahim shrugs. “Half of the people will, probably.”

Jens shakes his head. “I can’t. I have to go home.”

“Why?”

“Because of Simon.”

Brahim frowns. “Does he care where you sleep?”

“Yeah,” Jens says simply. “Because I literally sleep on his couch.”

“Then sleep on someone else’s.”

Jens gives him a small smile. “It’s not that simple.”

Brahim guesses that it isn’t. He doesn’t know this life, having to sleep on someone’s couch, not having things within reach. He likes to think that he is not _that_ spoiled, but all he’s ever had to do was ask for things.

Jens zips up his jacket and looks at Brahim again. “Thanks,” he says.

“For?”

Jens shrugs and looks around. “This,” he says. “Better than spending the night outside.”

“I beg to differ,” Brahim mumbles.

Jens laughs and opens the door, letting in the noise for a moment. Then he gives Brahim a small wave and closes the door behind him. 

~ ~ ~

Brahim wakes up on the sofa, with a terrible pain in his neck. He’s not really a giant, but the sofa is still way too small to comfortably sleep on.

He staggers out of the room. The air in the salon is practically unbreathable. On his way, he meets a couple of people looking for their way out, mightily hangover.

Suddenly, Brahim wants to slap himself. There’s no fun in this. While he would be laughing a few years ago, now he’s thinking about how he will manage to put the house at least a little bit in order. It’s absurd, and the most absurd thing is that he needed a drug dealer he’s never seen before to tell him to grow up.

He kicks out the last few remaining guests, of which he knows none by name, and locks the door. He opens all of the windows to help the situation at least a little bit, and then goes to have a shower.

When he comes out, water still dripping from his hair, the house is cold like a fridge, but at least it doesn’t smell like the nest of the worst sins. He decides to find some cleaning company and ask them to urgently send a cleaner, or better two, to take care of the mess. He remembers that his father must have the number in his study. Brahim just needs to ask them to send over someone else than they usually do. He doesn’t need the lady to describe the situation to his parents the next time she comes to do the laundry.

He walks over to his father’s desk and opens the first drawer, where he knows he keeps the tiny, leather bound address book with all the important numbers and addresses. As though cell phones don’t exist. 

Then he sees the piece of paper on the desk. There’s a phone number written in Jens’ surprisingly neat handwriting, and a smiley face. An actual _smiley face_ drawn next to it.

Brahim sits on the desk, the paper still in his hand. For a while, he tries to remember every detail of last night, and to separate his real feelings from those drug induced. In vain. He remembers a surprising amount of details, but as a whole, they don’t quite make sense, and he suddenly needs them to.

He puts the paper back on the desk, takes his phone and dials Samu’s number instead.

~ ~ ~

Samu looks annoyed as he gets in Brahim’s car on the corner of the worse part of the town. This is where they usually meet - or used to meet - because Samu wouldn’t deliver things wherever people wanted them to be delivered. His philosophy is that when people want something from him, they need to move their ass and come find him.

“I told you I didn’t have that stuff anymore,” he says.

Brahim nods. “I know. This time I need something else.”

Samu eyes him with suspicion. He’s always been wary around Brahim, and when Brahim once asked him why, he said that rich kids couldn’t be trusted. That they’d come up with the craziest shit possible, and they were unnecessary trouble. Which, Brahim has to give it to him, he’s probably being right now.

“I need… to know something.”

“To know something,” Samu repeats slowly, looking around quickly, like he’s expecting it to be a set-up, a trap of some sort.

“About Jens.”

Samu still looks confused, but not as cautious as before. Probably because Jens is a safe topic, since he has nothing to do with Samu, or Zlatan, for that matter. Talking about one of Zlatan’s people would be a different thing, but this is something Zlatan probably won’t rip his head off for.

“What about him?” he asks.

Brahim thinks for a while. He wants to phrase it in a safe way, but also bluntly enough to get a proper response. “He’s not doing this exactly… by choice, right?”

Samu sniffles and then looks around again. It seems like Zlatan isn’t the only one he fears, after all.

“Yeah, he… his brother used to work for Simon, that’s what I’ve heard, at least,” he says. “And then he made a stupid mistake, got caught and ended up in jail.”

Brahim keeps looking at him. He’s figured out that this was the end of the simple version. “And?” he prompts him when Samu is silent for too long.

Samu shrugs, almost like just telling the story is making him feel uncomfortable. “Well, he got caught with a lot of Simon’s stuff that was worth a lot of money, I’m told. So basically… Simon told Jens that if he worked off his debt, then his brother would make it out of jail in one piece.”

“You mean…”

“Man, if you’re off the streets, don’t mean you’re safe,” Samu spreads his arms dramatically. “Even less in jail. Simon could literally snap his fingers like that…” He snaps his fingers right in front of Brahim’s eyes, and something about it makes every hair on Brahim’s body stand up. 

“Jens said that he was sleeping on Simon’s couch,” he says then. It almost feels wrong to have this conversation with Samu, but he can’t help himself.

Samu nods curtly. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

Samu scratches his head. “I don’t even know, actually,” he shrugs. “When I started to work for Simon, he was already there… and I never asked. Why does that interest you?”

_Oh, right. Why does it interest him?_

“It just does,” he says, wishing he’d never asked that last question.

Samu looks at him, and then a grin appears on his face. “A-ha,” he chuckles. “Oh, God. No. No. Don’t do that. Don’t touch that. You don’t want to touch that.” 

Brahim takes a deep breath to calm down and repress the urge to punch Samu in the face. “Why?”

“For a myriad of reasons. What you’ve just asked me about should be enough to warn you off, if you actually used that thing in your head.” He opens the door resolutely and gets out of the car. Then he pokes his head back in. “There’s one rule for dealing with people in this business, you know,” he says. “Don’t pet their dogs, especially those they keep on a leash.”

He bangs the door shut and dissolves into the darkness of the nearest alley, like he had never been there. 

~ ~ ~

The table is set for the first time in weeks. Ever since his parents left, Brahim didn’t care for setting the table and eating out of porcelain dishes. It was either eating out, or eating delivery straight out of the styrofoam boxes, or not eating at all.

Whatever was broken in the house, his parents haven’t noticed yet. Probably it wasn’t anything important. After all, they’ve never had any use for all the expensive stuff. It just came with the house, but an Art Deco lamp worked just the same as an IKEA one. Perhaps the IKEA one actually gave more light.

As a kid, Brahim always dreamt of having a regular kid’s bedroom. He wanted the walls painted a crazy color, football posters, bedsheets with Spiderman, and cheap furniture that he could slap stickers from chewing gum packages on. Instead, he slept in rooms that looked like five star hotel suites, or like places where someone’s great-grandfather died, and that scared him, because he felt small and insignificant in there, and the double bed always seemed to swallow him. He begged his parents for plastic chairs and the carpet that looked like a city where he could play with toy cars, but they always told him the same thing. _The room comes with the house, the house has to stay the way it is._ And eventually, he stopped complaining. He found different ways to have fun, or stop caring at least. And they worked. Until recently.

He sat through hundreds of pictures accompanied by his father’s pseudo-professional presentation and his mother’s giggling and recounting of all the funny stories that were only funny to them. But he managed to do it with a polite smile on his face because he knew it would be over soon.

He had no idea that his parents would invite friends for dinner, and go over the whole trip to Sri Lanka once more.

He feels like he’s sitting in the middle of a beehive, and thinks that if he listens to the chatter for two more minutes, he’s either going to kill someone, or go insane. When his mother goes to mix more cocktails and his father fumbles with the remote to put the pictures back on so that he can start his presentation, Brahim pulls out his phone and finds Jens’ number, which he has already put in. He hesitates for a moment, because suddenly, he’s got a little flashback, and thinks of how a line of mephedrone is not going to magically solve his family issues.

But it’s definitely going to make them more bearable.

He starts a new text message, a completely clean slate that should stay that way, and he knows it damn well, but he just never listens to whatever reasonable his mind has to say.

_Can we meet?_

~ ~ ~

It’s absurd how well he knows the parts of the town he was never supposed to know. The ones he doesn’t belong to, the ones where he never fits in, no matter what he does or how hard he tries. Samu would always laugh at him when he tried to blend in with the working class and the people of questionable existence. He once told him that no matter what he put on or what car he took, everything about him screamed he was just a rich kid in a carnival costume. So he stopped trying to blend in. It made things easier. When people saw he had the money, he’d get everything he wanted more easily.

The moment he spots Jens among the other shadows of the street, he flickers the lights and unlocks the door that he always keeps locked around here. Just another thing to remind him that he’s not really welcome here.

Jens gets in and immediately rubs his hands together. Brahim reaches over to the heating and turns it up, despite preferring cooler air himself.

Jens looks at him, scans him from head to toe, and whistles quietly. “Damn, you look like you’re going to… I don’t know. Somewhere important.”

Brahim sighs. “Not really. I’ve just run away from a family dinner.”

“Were your parents trying to marry you off to some rich but ugly girl to unite your heirlooms?” Jens asks and giggles. “Or don’t they do it in the high society anymore?”

“I think you’re idealizing it,” Brahim mumbles. “Or maybe you’re not. Maybe they still do it in the _high society_ , just my parents are scared that if they invited a girl over, I’d embarrass them.”

“Yeah, you would,” Jens says with a smirk. “You’d run off to buy some white magic before dessert.” 

Brahim rolls his eyes. He knows he’s a failure of a son, he definitely doesn’t need Jens to rub it in.

“Can I get the stuff or do I have to find it myself?” he asks.

Jens laughs shortly. “Maybe.”

Brahim narrows his eyes and slides his hands down the nylon of Jens’ jacket tentatively, like he’s half expecting to get punched, but instead, Jens just smiles and spreads his arms. Brahim wants to laugh. _For how innocent he looks, boy is quite a flirt._

Brahim’s fingers dart in one pocket, then the other.

“Cold,” Jens smiles.

Brahim lets his hands travel up and then he reaches for the zipper.

“Warmer.”

“You sure you’re not high on that stuff yourself?” Brahim mumbles as he slides the zipper down.

“Yeah. Because I’d never touch it.”

Brahim just nods. It was the same thing with Samu, and - he supposes - all of the dealers, actually. Selling it means a strict hands-off. 

When Brahim slides his hands under Jens’ jacket, he feels the warmth radiating from him, and it’s almost like it melts something deep inside him. 

“Warmer,” Jens says again, prompting him to go on.

Brahim finds the breast pocket and smirks.

“Boiling,” Jens laughs as he fishes out a plastic bag.

Brahim tucks the bag in his pocket, suddenly quite uninterested in it, and hands Jens the money. Jens leans back in the seat, like Brahim’s car is the safest, most comfortable place he’s been in lately.

“What about the house? Didn’t it burn down or something?” he asks.

“No. But the lovely lady from the cleaning service spent about three hours cursing me out in Romanian.”

Jens raises his brows. “You speak Romanian?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know she was cursing you out?”

“She was grumbling and looking in my direction every five seconds, I suppose she wasn’t praising my hairstyle.” He looks ahead at the empty street. “What about you? Did you get in trouble for talking to Samu?”

Jens’ smile gets a bit strained, if Brahim can judge in the dim light.

“Now I feel guilty,” he says quietly. “I cared about your house, and you care about me.”

Brahim takes a sharp breath. He can’t tell if Jens really feels guilty, or if he’s just avoiding the answer. He doesn’t even know if he should press on or let it be. It painfully shows him the reality of having no friends - or family, for that matter - whom he could actually talk to about things other than parties, drugs, politics and money. He’s terribly unprepared for any kind of a deeper conversation.

“I do,” he says quietly. 

He’s not lying. He does. He doesn’t know why. But he does.

“So did you, or did you not?”

“I’m alive, am I not?” Jens smiles again.

 _Very much so_ , Brahim wants to say, but at the same time, he catches himself looking for any proof that Jens is lying, or at least downplaying it a great deal. But if there is such proof, it’s not anywhere Brahim can see.

After a while, Jens squirms under his gaze, and reaches for the handle.

“Gotta go,” he says. 

Brahim nods, although something in him wants to lock the door and never let him out.

“Do you sleep on a different couch at least?” he asks.

“Still the same,” Jens smiles. “Night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a translation of the lyrics of Här kommer lyckan för hundar som oss/Here Comes Happiness For Dogs Like Us by Hakan Hellström.


	2. Need a little love from the wrong kind

Jens hits the switch on the wall with his palm blindly, finding the right spot unmistakably. The corridor lights up, just enough for him not to trip over anything while walking up the stairs. The elevator never works. 

When he unlocks the door, there’s a stripe of light coming from underneath the bathroom door. He hangs his jacket on the hook next to the door, and kicks off his shoes. Then he makes his way to the kitchen, switches on the light and throws the money on the kitchen table. 

The quiet sound of water stops and the bathroom door screeches. Apparently, Simon is just going to bed. Given the hour, for once he goes to sleep like a normal person and not a vampire.

They live a life that’s very different from other people’s. When those people are getting up at sunrise and the city is slowly waking up, they are falling asleep with the curtains drawn. Jens doesn’t even remember when he’s last entered a regular grocery shop - when he needs something, he has to buy it at the gas station, because no shops are open at the odd hours he’s usually awake.

“If you’re hungry, there’s something on the stove,” Simon says, somewhere in the hallway. “Warm it up.”

“Yeah.” He sighs with relief when he sees the half-empty pot of pasta. He’s _starving_.

Simon pokes his head through the kitchen door. “Seriously. Warm it up. If I see you eat it cold like last time…”

Jens smiles sheepishly. “I won’t. Switching on the stove, see?”

Simon shakes his head and looks at the money on the table. Then he walks over to it and collects it. He hates it when Jens leaves things lying around.

Jens sits at the table. He stopped minding eating Simon’s leftovers a long time ago, practically after a week, when he got over himself and realized that it was better than going to bed hungry… or than any food he could buy outside at two in the morning, for that matter.

“You left it there for about a minute,” Simon says.

Jens stabs a fork in the plate and shrugs. “It’s enough.”

“You’re a savage,” Simon sighs and walks out of the kitchen.

Jens throws the dirty plate in the sink, takes a quick shower and then creates his little nest on the couch. He’s almost rushing, eager to get as much out of this night as he can.

It’s a night that promises sleep. One of those when he can just curl up on the couch and not be afraid to close his eyes, because the apartment door is locked, the bedroom door is ajar, and Simon is there. 

The nights when it’s Simon’s turn to do business, as he casually calls it, Jens sits in the living room with the lamp switched on, stares at the digits of the alarm clock and waits for him to come back. Waits _if_ he will come back. When he hears the key in the lock, he always feels like jumping up, running through the apartment and falling in Simon’s arms. Sometimes he acts on that impulse.

He can always tell how things went, without Simon actually telling him anything. Sometimes he laughs and jokes around with him. Sometimes he lets Jens throw his arms around his neck, but he just stares at some invisible point over his shoulder. The worst nights are those when he says nothing and won’t even look at him. Those nights Jens would maybe prefer Simon to beat him black and blue, anything instead of the silence. Because silence, for some reason, feeds all of his fears.

He’s afraid of losing Simon, of being all alone. He doesn’t think that he loves him, he doesn’t even particularly like him, probably. But in this world, he’s still vulnerable like a little bird that fell out of a nest. That’s why he holds onto him. Because Simon already knows how to fly.

~ ~ ~

He wakes up when the pale sun is trying to worm its way through the thick curtains. He throws away the blanket and makes way to the bathroom, still practically blind and relying on memory. He’s trying to be quiet, as always when he’s the first one to wake up. And as always, he manages to accidentally knock over the bottle of shower gel, which falls in the bathtub with a loud thud, and hits the shower hose in just the right way to make the shower head tumble over and fall in the bathtub as well.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Simon’s voice sounds from the bedroom. “What is next, you’ll start world war three?”

“I’m sorry,” Jens calls, fishing the gel out of the bathtub.

“No problem. Not like I wanted to sleep or anything,” Simon mutters somewhere behind the closed door.

Jens clears out of the bathroom and heads to the kitchen to make coffee as an apology. 

It’s funny that even though they’re in Italy, in the country famous for its coffee, the only brand of coffee they have is IKEA’s PÅTÅR, which most Italians wouldn’t touch with a pole two meters long. Most of their food comes from IKEA, almost like Simon doesn’t trust anything that doesn’t come from there. He barely tolerates pizza or some basic pasta.

Simon comes to the kitchen some twenty minutes later, grabs a cup from the shelf and pours himself some of the coffee from the pot. 

“You didn’t sell all last night?” he asks, sitting at the small table.

Jens shakes his head.

“And where is it?” 

Jens gets up and goes to retrieve his jacket from the hallway. The moment he walks in with it, Simon briskly places the cup on the table.

“Jens, how many times now?” he says exasperatedly. “You don’t put it inside anything you take off. And then hang it in the hallway.”

“Well, you’re not gonna steal it,” Jens mumbles.

“Quit talking back to me!”

Jens instinctively takes a step back. He’s experienced this a number of times, Simon’s zero to hundred and then back to zero in three seconds, but it’s impossible to get used to.

“You never let it out of your sight,” Simon says then, back to his usual calm voice. “Like your drink at a bar… or anywhere else.”

Jens pulls the plastic bags out and throws them on the table. “I meant that it was just you and me here,” he says quietly. “It was for the second part. I know I shouldn’t have it in there.”

“You watch your drink no matter who you’re with,” Simon says. “How do you know I didn’t put anything in your coffee when you had your back to me?”

Jens shrugs and picks up the cup again. “I trust you,” he says and takes another sip of his coffee. 

Simon runs a hand over his face. “You’re hopeless,” he says.

~ ~ ~

The days are a strange vacuum. They are so used to doing everything important at night that the afternoons are completely empty for them. Almost like time stands still. Usually, they watch TV, if there’s sports, because their Italian isn’t quite on the level to watch anything more complicated. 

Jens throws his phone on the coffee table and gets up, making way to the kitchen to get something to drink. Suddenly, there is a knock on the door.

Jens freezes immediately. It’s a learned response. 

A moment later, Simon emerges from the room, a gun in hand. He pulls Jens back and pushes him inside the living room.

“Don’t make a sound!” he hisses.

Jens plasters himself against the wall and listens carefully to the sound of the key turning in the lock.

“Theo!” Simon snaps then. “One day I’m going to kill you, and no one can blame me for it!”

Jens lets out the breath he had been holding the entire time, and unglues himself from the wall. 

“You can’t just turn up here whenever you fucking please!” Simon says. 

“Sorry,” Theo’s voice says, way too calm for someone who nearly got accidentally shot to death a moment ago. “But… Alessio wants to talk to you. There’s a problem with…”

“Wait!” Simon stops him just as they walk in.

Theo looks at Jens and swallows the rest of the sentence. “Oh… hi,” he says.

Jens nods and glances at Simon, silently asking if he should get out of the apartment now. It’s usually that way whenever something important needs to be discussed.

Maybe at the beginning, he would get offended, until he understood that it was for his own good. The less he knows, the safer he is. Of course, it goes both ways - what Jens doesn’t know, he can’t tell, so Simon is protecting himself as well. Still, Jens is quite grateful for it.

Simon hands Jens a folded banknote and makes a _shoo_ gesture, while Theo awkwardly moves aside to let him pass. They don’t say a single word until Jens grabs his phone, keys and jacket, and closes the door behind him.

He runs down the stairs and opens the door. There’s the smell of rain hanging in the air, which doesn’t make him happy at all. He pulls out his phone and flips through the messages. Then, on sudden impulse, he sends one to Brahim.

_Aren’t you bored?_

He waits for a while, then puts the phone back in his pocket and starts to walk towards the nearest subway station. He checks the phone from time to time, but there’s no answer. 

He runs down the stairs to the station just as the first drops fall.

~ ~ ~

Brahim wakes up to a dark room. He remembers going to bed to take a nap just after lunch, which means that his nap was actually several hours long. It’s not surprising; after all, he’s already learned that every mephedrone trip sucks out all of his energy, and he pays for the hours he could literally bounce off the walls with double the amount of hours that he spends sleeping.

He switches on the lamp and reaches for his phone to check the time.

It’s nearly half past nine, and he’s got a message from Jens.

He frowns, because by the nature of their relationship, he should be the one starting conversations, but at the same time, it somehow warms his heart. It feels almost like receiving a message from a friend. Which is something he doesn’t really have. 

He opens the message, which says just “Aren’t you bored?”. And was sent more than three hours ago. Fuck. _Fuck._

He falls back into the pillows and rubs his eyes for a while, cursing himself out. Then he reaches for the phone again and writes a response.

_Where are you?_

~ ~ ~

When he stops the car at the corner of the street, Jens steps out of the shadows of a building that looks like a small bookmaker’s shop combined with a café, which is closed at this hour, but its awning offers at least some protection from the rain.

Brahim reaches for the heating regulator automatically, before Jens even closes the door behind him.

“I’m so sorry,” Brahim says. “I didn’t snub you, I swear. I was sleeping.”

Jens laughs shortly. “I didn’t think you snubbed me.”

“Yeah, what can you expect from a junkie like me?” Brahim sighs. “I was to like… ten different clubs last night, because I was afraid my dad’s lecture on Sri Lanka wasn’t over yet. And I slept all day. I’m useless.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over everything, Jesus!” Jens laughs. “I just had some spare time unexpectedly, so I tried my luck. No big deal.”

“And you don’t have it anymore?” Brahim asks. “The spare time?”

Jens looks at the small blue digits on the dashboard. “I need to be somewhere in about two hours,” he says. “On the other side of the city, to be precise.”

“Can I give you a ride, at least?”

Jens laughs again. “So first you let me sell stuff at your party, and then you’ll drive me places to sell it… you really are becoming a part of the business.”

“Let’s just say I want to enjoy the one occasion when I’m not the one buying it,” Brahim says and places his hands on the wheel, straightening his back to an exaggerated posture. “Where to, sir?”

Jens shows him the address on his phone. Brahim nods and starts to look for the shortest way to get to the main road. Once he’s on it, he steps on the gas, like he’s used to in this part of the city.

“Brahim!” Jens says immediately. “Slow down.”

Brahim laughs, glancing at him. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want the police to stop us with what I have on me,” Jens says. “You might get a speeding ticket, but I could get at least five years in jail.”

Brahim wants to slap himself. He steps on the brakes, slowing down to comply with the speed limit.

“Like your brother?” he asks quietly.

Jens turns to him immediately. “How do you know?”

“From Samu,” Brahim says. “I asked him why… you were doing this. He told me everything.”

“Everything,” Jens repeats and shakes his head. “He doesn’t _know_ everything. And he’s got no business telling other people.”

“So it’s not true? That Simon’s forcing you to pay off your brother’s debt?”

“No!” Jens snaps. “He’s not forcing me to do anything.”

The atmosphere in the car immediately shifts. Brahim has never thought of himself as of someone sensitive enough to truly perceive these things, but now it’s almost like the heating has just switched off and plunged the cabin into an ice-cold night.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to.” 

“Fine.”

A very uncomfortable kind of silence fills the space. One that makes Brahim feel like if he wasn’t going at the speed that he is, Jens would open the door and jump out to avoid every possibility of continuing that conversation.

The neon signs of a gas station in the distance are almost a sign. Almost like seeing an oasis after a long, long day in the desert.

He stops the car in the almost empty parking lot behind the gas station. The rain is pouring hard on the windshield, so strong the wipers almost can’t cope with it.

“I’m sorry,” he says then. “It’s none of my business.”

Jens sighs and then he looks at him, and it suddenly seems to Brahim that he’s not angry anymore. He looks rather sad, or even sorry. “I get it that you care,” he says. “And… it’s nice of you, but… maybe don’t look at me like that, and don’t talk to me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m the princess in the tower or something.”

Brahim laughs shortly. “You mean I got a bit too much into the white knight role?”

“Yeah,” Jens says and lowers his eyes, playing with his fingers for a while. “You’re all eager to fight the dragon, but there’s no dragon.” 

There’s silence for a while. It’s like Brahim is almost sure that he’s lying, and Jens knows that Brahim isn’t buying it, but neither of them want to continue fighting about it.

“Stay here,” Brahim says then and gets out of the car.

The ice-cold rain hits him in the face and he at least pulls up the collar of his jacket as he heads towards the gas station. The automatic door opens and he walks in. The small shop combined with a cafeteria is empty and eerily quiet, save for the generic music. In a way, it feels like walking into an abandoned wonderland full of treasures such as chocolate boxes in shiny wrappers, kitschy plushies and overpriced bags of gummy bears. The kid in him always wakes up at the sight of that, and he has to remind himself what he’s here for, and tear his gaze from the bouquets of flowers waiting there for guys who have either forgotten about some anniversary, or seriously fucked up.

He gets two cups of coffee, steaming hot, from the cafeteria counter, and walks out. He opens the door of his car, gets in and hands one of the cups to Jens.

“Thanks,” Jens says, and takes off the plastic lid to smell the coffee.

“Do you even drink coffee?” Brahim asks. “I mean, I should have asked before, but…”

“I do,” Jens says. “Swedish coffee, mostly, but… not really Swedish coffee. Not with the egg.”

Brahim frowns. “What egg?” 

“It’s a Scandinavian thing. Putting an egg in the coffee.”

“Like… an actual egg?” 

“Yeah. A raw egg.”

Brahim raises his brows. “And otherwise you’re all okay up there?”

Jens starts to laugh. “I guess?”

Brahim shakes his head and takes a sip from the cup. Only then he notices that Jens is looking at him.

“What?” he frowns.

“For how long did you buy from Samu?” Jens asks.

“Six months, maybe,” Brahim shrugs. “Why?”

“And before that?”

“Before that, I didn’t live here,” Brahim says. “But if you mean what I was on before… pretty much just weed, stuff like that. Some dance pills, occasionally.”

Jens nods without a word and puts the lid back on his cup before placing it on the dashboard. Suddenly, Brahim feels irritated. Like this was an attempt at getting back at him for what he had asked earlier, and he wouldn’t even be mad, if Jens really went for his throat and didn’t just stop halfway.

“You want to know how deep in I am?” he asks, trying to feed the fire.

“Knees deep, I’d say,” Jens says calmly. “You’re not calling me every day, nor are you stocking up, so…”

Brahim lowers his eyes. “So I still pretty much just abuse it.”

For a while, they listen to the sound of the raindrops hitting the roof. 

“Have you ever taken anything?” Brahim asks then.

Jens throws his arm over the back of his seat, curling up on it like they’re sitting in a cozy living room and not in the parking lot of a lousy gas station.

“Once,” he says. “And I’m not going to do it ever again.”

Brahim chuckles. “Bad trip?”

“The trip was good,” Jens shrugs. “What followed it… not so much.”

They stay silent for a while. Then Jens reaches for his cup again.

“You’ve invited me on a coffee date, and we’re ruining it now,” he sighs.

Brahim shifts in his seat uncomfortably. 

“Can we even call it a coffee date?” he asks.

“Why not?” Jens asks and finishes his coffee. “I don’t need a view on the Duomo and coffee that costs six euros.”

“That’s the coffee part,” Brahim says and lifts his eyes to him. “But what about the date part?”

“That depends on you,” Jens says, and for the first time, there is something nervous in his voice. “You know who I am. If you’re fine with it… And I mean, you have a million reasons not to be.”

“I… I’m completely fine with it,” Brahim stutters, realizing that he’s probably being asked the more adult version of the playground’s ‘Do you want to go out with me?’. And he feels like Samu’s warnings should be ringing in his ears now, but he doesn’t care. All he sees is Jens’ face, an epitome of innocence and purity, and he knows that it’s just what was missing from his life. “If you’re… fine with who I am.”

Jens smiles, and Brahim feels like it’s maybe the first time someone’s smile truly belongs to him. “There’s nothing wrong with who you are,” he says. 

Brahim almost cringes, because there are so many things that are wrong with who he is, or rather should be and isn’t. He actually has to look down at his fingers nervously playing with the car keys, because hearing it is one thing, and accepting it is another, and he can’t do both at the same time.

When he looks up again, he finds out that Jens’ face is now mere inches from his. 

“You want to kiss me or not?” Jens asks.

Brahim’s breath hitches in his throat. He wants to, but at the same time, it’s all a bit too fast, it feels like someone’s fast forwarding a tape, or skipping the boring parts of the movie, and that someone is probably Jens. Brahim knows that he should listen to this warning as well, but all he hears is the _there’s nothing wrong with who you are_ , and he closes the distance between them.

It’s not the first time he’s kissing someone, and he can tell that it’s definitely not the first time Jens is kissing someone. That part, actually, is the least awkward. And he likes it, he likes the way once Jens touches him, he never really lets go. Even after they finally pull apart, he keeps a light touch on Brahim’s arm, and Brahim can’t remember the last time he’s had physical contact this intimate with anyone. If ever.

Before he can come up with something to say, which would be incredibly stupid for sure, Jens taps on the display of the digital clock on the dashboard, and Brahim nods without a word, starts the car and gets back on the highway.

~ ~ ~

The following couple of days are weird. Brahim is trying to come to terms with what happened, but at times, he’s got the feeling that nothing happened at all. One evening, he musters up the courage to open the text messages, but instead of typing something meaningful, he sends a very business-like one, and arranges a meeting at the usual place.

And almost like Jens is determined not to make things easier for him, or rather not be the one to take the lead all the time and just let Brahim be the coward that he is, he plays along. He gets in Brahim’s car, lets him fish the plastic bag with mephedrone out of his pocket, grabs the money and disappears.

And Brahim begins to question his own memory, almost thinking that his brain had concocted the entire thing when it probably had a bit too much of the white fuel.

But then he gets a text the following evening. 

_Coffee date was good, what about another kind of date now?_

Brahim frowns to himself and quickly types the response.

_What kind of date?_

The only answer he gets is an address of a bar he’s never heard of.

Half an hour later, he’s at that address.

He’s actually quite afraid of what he’s going to walk into. He knows his great deal of bars, but they are mainly on the posh side. They are cocktail bars or music clubs with cozy lounges, a human filter at the entrance in the form of a bodyguard, usually, and none of them are located in a dingy side alley.

But when he walks inside, he doesn’t see anything scary or suspicious at all. It looks like a regular bar, with simple, wooden tables, sports posters and memorabilia on the walls, darts targets and a couple billiard tables. Behind one, Jens is smiling at him.

“Billiard date, maybe?” he asks.

Brahim laughs shortly. One of their houses - he still remembers it was an old villa near a park, but he’s forgotten what city it was in - came with a billiard table in one of the rooms. He remembers playing in the afternoons, until he grew bored of playing only against himself.

“I’m in,” he says, throws the car keys on the table without actually getting the thought of someone stealing them, and takes off his jacket.

He takes the cue Jens hands him, a basic, fairly beaten up thing that is nothing like the ones he remembers belonged to the billiard table at their house. Well, at their house, the danger of them getting broken in a bar fight was also significantly smaller.

“Wanna break?” Jens asks.

“You better do it,” Brahim says. “It’s been a while since I last played… wouldn’t want to fuck up the whole game.”

“You worry about that a lot,” Jens smiles. “Fucking things up.”

“Because that’s what usually happens.”

Jens just shakes his head and aligns the cue with the white. The pleasant sound of the balls hitting the felted sides of the table almost make Brahim feel calmer, more at ease. When it’s his turn, he’s already not worried about fucking things up.

The first game is short. Brahim soon realizes that he’s not nearly as good as Jens. Not because he’s rusty, he feels like he’s never been better than he is now, and it’s simply not enough. It’s like Jens plays every other day, and probably he does. Otherwise, he most likely wouldn’t know a place like this.

But Brahim doesn’t mind. He wouldn’t mind if he lost a thousand times. Because suddenly, he feels like he’s doing something normal, and it feels good. It feels just as good as being high or speeding on the highway, but unlike that, this is completely safe and legal.

“I’m sorry,” he says after another three games, out of which he loses two, and he’s got a feeling that Jens left him the third out of pity. “For… last time. I was… a coward.”

“Oh,” Jens smiles. “Yeah, I wondered what it was about. But… you know, if you wanted to keep things separate, I mean… the business part and the dating part, I wouldn’t mind.”

“That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?” Brahim frowns. “Like… pretending we don’t know each other or something… that’s stupid.”

Jens shrugs, like he’s seen weirder things in his life, so he wouldn’t be surprised if Brahim was this kind of crazy.

“Besides that…” Brahim says and then he chuckles. “You know, since I’ve met you… it’s almost like I’ve been keeping it down. I mean… I haven’t even touched the stuff I bought last time.”

“I don’t know if it’s good news for me or not,” Jens chuckles. “I mean… good for you, but not good for the business, probably.” 

Suddenly, his phone, laid on the table among the glasses and Brahim’s car keys, dings with the sound of an incoming message. Jens picks it up and looks at it, his finger hovering above the home button. Then he puts it back on the table.

“If you need to go…” Brahim says, looking at him.

Jens shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

He grabs the cue again and walks around the table.

Since Jens didn’t open the message, the phone lights up again, showing the notification. Brahim tries to inconspicuously peek at it, but the words he catches make no sense, since they aren’t in a language he would understand. 

Jens sinks the ball and glances over at Brahim. Almost like he wants to make sure he’s not mad. Except that Brahim couldn’t care less for the situation on the table. 

The phone dings again, another incoming message. Jens’ eyes dart to the table.

“Just answer it,” Brahim says.

“No, it’s fine,” Jens mumbles and aligns the cue again.

He hits the white in such an awkward manner that it makes a little jump, and completely misses the target ball. When he walks over to Brahim to make place for him at the table, Brahim stops him, wrapping his arms around his waist.

“Jens,” he says quietly. “I won’t get mad. I don’t want you to…”

The phone starts to ring. Jens stays in Brahim’s embrace for a second or two longer, like he’s desperately trying not to give in, but then he untangles himself from him and reaches for the phone. In the split second Brahim can see his face, he notices that he’s even paler than usual.

He walks over to one of the empty tables in the corner, out of Brahim’s earshot, although Brahim is quite sure he wouldn’t understand a word anyway. 

All of a sudden, Brahim realizes the situation is strangely familiar. He’s been there many times, except the phone was a plastic bag containing whatever he was taking then, and he was staring at it and trying to resist the temptation, but he caved in eventually.

And when Jens comes back to the table, he looks just as guilty as Brahim always feels when he sobers up.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles and almost runs outside.

Brahim stands there for a moment, before collecting himself, quickly grabbing his things and running outside.

“Jens!” he calls. “You need a ride?”

Jens shakes his head. “No, it’s… it’s not far.”

“You sure?”

Jens nods and then he looks at Brahim again, and suddenly Brahim gets the feeling that their roles have switched, and Jens is the one afraid of fucking things up.

Brahim looks around to make sure the alley is empty, just in case, and then he presses his lips against Jens’. 

“Let me know you’re safe, okay?” he whispers.

And just like it’s a magic spell, like every time he hits this note, Jens immediately slips into the dismissive mode.

“I’m not going to war,” he says. Then he catches Brahim’s look, and gets rid of the fake smile at least. “I will.”

~ ~ ~

When he runs up the stairs to their apartment, Simon is already standing at the door. He spreads his arms exasperatedly.

“Are you fucking deaf?” he asks. 

“Sorry,” Jens mumbles.

Simon just shakes his head, pulls him inside and locks the door.

It’s one of those nights Simon gets a tip-off that something’s going down. Jens has no clue who he gets the tip-off from, but since one of Simon’s mottos is that “everyone is for sale”, he supposes that someone in the local police likes to get some extra pay to his salary. 

Simon then calls everyone off the street, and they wait hidden somewhere until it’s over. Jens thinks of it as an adult version of hide-and-seek.

“What the hell is wrong with everybody tonight?” Simon mutters. “First you, and now Sandro probably forgot that cell phones existed!”

Jens creeps to the living room and sits on the couch, pretending that he’s invisible, which is the best survival tactics whenever Simon is in this mood.

Then Simon’s phone rings. He picks up immediately.

“Hakan?” he asks.

“Found him,” Hakan’s voice says. “Someone should give him a charger for Christmas.”

“I’m strangling him for Christmas, that’s what he’s getting!” Simon growls. “Go to the nearest place and stay there, we don’t have time.”

The anger and urgency in his voice are making Jens curl up on himself more and more. He’s realizing what he had thought was okay to ignore, and what could have happened if he didn’t cave in and pick up the phone in the end. If Sandro deserves to get strangled for running out of battery, he probably deserves something even worse.

Simon sits in the armchair and throws the phone on the table, a bit more relaxed now that everyone is probably accounted for. Then he rubs his eyes before looking at Jens.

“If you don’t stop this, I’ll start to think that you did something I wouldn’t like,” he says. “And because I really can’t deal with that tonight, I’m going to the kitchen to get myself a drink, and when I come back, you’ll act normal and not like someone’s about to cut your throat.”

Jens waits until Simon leaves the room, and then he reaches for his phone. There are already about five texts from Brahim, but he doesn’t have time to read them all. He quickly types “I’m fine” and sends the message, before slipping the phone back in his pocket. 

Then he takes a deep breath and tries to pull himself together.

~ ~ ~

Brahim is slowly getting used to whatever he’s gotten himself into with Jens. At first, it was pretty confusing and kind of infuriating, but now he thinks that it’s actually better than his picture perfect life that’s planned in other people’s agendas. 

Sometimes, Jens disappears for days, and then sends Brahim a text out of the blue, and acts like they had seen each other hours ago. And after each such period of silence, he will get in Brahim’s car every single night, and just sit there, play music, drink shitty coffee from the gas station and kiss Brahim like there’s no tomorrow.

He is apparently quite used to such life, and Brahim is slowly getting used to it as well. Throwing plans out of the window and just… existing, but in a good way.

He lives by night and sleeps by day, or doesn’t sleep at all. And he almost thinks it’s completely normal, and almost forgets about who Jens really is.

Until one night, he finds him on the usual spot, in the company of people who are clearly not his friends.

There are three of them. He’s missed the beginning of the altercation, but it’s clear that they aren’t happy about something, and it’s probably got to do with the business going on here. 

Which means that calling the police, however reasonable it seems, is complete nonsense. However, the seconds are ticking and he catches himself waiting for the moment Jens starts to defend himself like in Brahim’s mind he should, and then there comes the realization that the moment is never going to come. And that’s when his heart starts beating way too fast.

He does the only thing he can think of. Switches on the fog lights, and smashes the horn button with his palm. 

To his amazement, it works. They scatter like a flock of crows, disappearing in the shadows of the side alleys. Brahim still waits a couple of seconds before he unlocks the door and jumps out.

By the time he reaches him, Jens is already trying to pick himself up. At first glance, Brahim notices a split lip, a bruise already starting to form on his left cheek, and a bleeding wound on his eyebrow, and that’s just looking at his face. He pulls him to the nearest bench and sits him on it. He only touches Jens’ cheek with the back of his hand and Jens immediately jumps up. Brahim can feel how hot it is.

“You have to go to the hospital,” he says resolutely.

Jens blinks slowly, like he’s trying hard to stay conscious. “I don’t know,” he mumbles.

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Brahim laughs in disbelief. “What kind of nonsense is that?” he asks. “It’s not even negotiable, you can’t… you have to, okay? I can drive you somewhere, or…”

Jens shakes his head. “My phone.”

“What?”

“Find my phone.”

Brahim pats him down gently, trying to find the phone without actually touching him in a wrong place, but even if he does, Jens doesn’t complain. For how delicate he looks, he’s actually coping well, and Brahim finds it deeply unsettling. Because it’s not like he’s that tough. It’s more like he’s used to suffering in silence.

Brahim finds the phone, eventually. The display is cracked, but still lights up when he touches it. He puts it in Jens’ hand and looks at him with concern.

“Who do you want to call?”

“Simon.”

It momentarily takes all words from Brahim, and at the same time, he wants to scream. The thought that Jens wants to literally ask for permission to _not fucking die_ , probably, while thinking that it’s completely normal, is so absurd that it’s frustrating.

But no matter what he says and how he looks at him, Jens is adamant, and it looks like there’s not a single grain of doubt in his mind that this is the right thing to do, the _only_ right thing to do.

He does some explaining in a language Brahim doesn’t understand. He can’t tell if it’s Danish, Norwegian or Swedish, they all sound the same to him. All he can tell is that it seems to somehow calm Jens down.

“You shouldn’t be here…” Jens says then. “I… don’t want…”

“You don’t want Simon to know.”

Jens nods. Brahim shakes his head resolutely.

“I’m not leaving you here alone.”

The initial fear and confusion is slowly turning to anger. He’s angry like a mother whose child someone’s dared to hurt. He’s mad at himself for not stopping it sooner, even though rationally, he knows that it’s nonsense. Maybe he’s just turning the anger against himself so that he doesn’t have to be mad at Jens for not letting him protect him. 

“I’ve had worse,” Jens whispers.

It’s like throwing another log into the fire that’s already burning inside of Brahim, even more so because he feels like this is one of the rare moments Jens isn’t lying to him. “Was that supposed to reassure me? Because if so, it didn’t work.”

Jens grips the backrest of the bench and leans forward slightly, like he’s looking for the most comfortable position. “Go. Please.”

Brahim gets up, using all the rests of his willpower. He sits in the car, starts it and slowly backs it to the corner of the street, half-hiding it behind a building so that it looks like it’s just parked there. He locks it and switches off the lights. He doesn’t know if it’s because of what he’s just witnessed, or because he’s sitting in a locked car, in the dark, in the middle of an empty street, but he feels on the brink of a panic attack.

A few minutes later, a black SUV pulls up. It’s not the car he had expected… for whatever reason, he expected something expensive and extravagant... at least like the one he drives himself. But Simon also doesn’t look like he’d imagined him. Just like the car, he looks surprisingly normal, so much that it’s unsettling. Maybe it’s just that the visual doesn’t match what Brahim knows about him, but something about him makes every hair on Brahim’s body stand up, and at the same time, he’s sure that everyone would call him crazy for it.

He watches on as Simon takes off his jacket and throws it over Jens’ shoulders. Then he picks him up, almost gently. And something about it, or maybe about the way Jens holds onto him, trusting like a child, makes Brahim’s stomach turn.

He stays there in the dark until he can no longer see the lights of the SUV. Then he starts the car and lays his hands on the wheel, only to see how much they are shaking. He turns the engine off again, and leans back in the seat.

He stays there for nearly an hour, until his heartbeat slows down enough for him to be able to get home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a translation of the lyrics from Hakan Hellström's song Magiskt, men tragiskt/Magic, But Tragic.


End file.
